Guild Wars 2

I am stuck between the two, please give me pros and cons for both

Everyone and their dog has a warrior and elementalist.

Engineers are rare gems.

Eles have more than one viable build; that tends to make them more popular than Engis, who have so many balance issues that grenades and bombs (the two most annoying to use weapons in the entire game) vastly outrank their normal weapons.

You should consider Engi more closely if you wanted to play a primary support class, but I figure you wouldn’t have asked about Eles in that case.

Engineers have more than one viable build. I think eles are consistently a bit more complicated than an engineer (which is by no means a bad thing, I love swapping attunements/kits for constant abilities), I only say this because engineers dont always have to have kits while eles will always have their attunements.

I personally enjoy playing my engineer way more than an ele because I have the versatility to be a ballin’ support guy, or dish out some great dps without re-traiting. Also maybe the reason I like the engineer most in pvp is the control options, being able to keep someone on the ground for like 10 seconds is hilarious and very very powerful.

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

Engineers have more than one viable build, viable is a stupid word.

Good lord I could not agree more. Folks love to claim builds are not viable, even though hundreds of folks thrive using them every day.

coglin.1496:

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

Engineers have more than one viable build, viable is a stupid word.

Good lord I could not agree more. Folks love to claim builds are not viable, even though hundreds of folks thrive using them every day.

I removed the stupid word part while you were posting I guess haha because I didn’t want the dude above me to think i was attacking him, I’m not, I’m just tired of hearing that engineers are confined to ’nades.

coglin.1496:

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

Engineers have more than one viable build, viable is a stupid word.

Good lord I could not agree more. Folks love to claim builds are not viable, even though hundreds of folks thrive using them every day.

Viable is a nice word, sorry to burst your linguistic bubble. And while engineers don’t have exactly one single viable build, they’re much more limited than Eles in what they can accomplish offensively. I’m not talking about support or healing, mind you.

Ploppy.2917:

coglin.1496:

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

Engineers have more than one viable build, viable is a stupid word.

Good lord I could not agree more. Folks love to claim builds are not viable, even though hundreds of folks thrive using them every day.

Viable is a nice word, sorry to burst your linguistic bubble. And while engineers don’t have exactly one single viable build, they’re much more limited than Eles in what they can accomplish offensively. I’m not talking about support or healing, mind you.

That may be the case, I think though that overall the engineers provide more utility because they do have several very effective damaging builds as well as great support potential. The point I was mainly trying to get across was that grenades are definitely not they only build engineers have to do damage – and if someone isn’t very good at ground targeting, grenades may not even be the best option for them for dps.

Ploppy.2917:

Viable is a nice word, sorry to burst your linguistic bubble. And while engineers don’t have exactly one single viable build, they’re much more limited than Eles in what they can accomplish offensively. I’m not talking about support or healing, mind you.

Okay it is nice. you just used it wrong. Just like your claim that ele’s have more viable builds is wrong. Just because you only have the skill to play a limited amount of builds does not make you correct to claim what the “viable” builds are.

It is a very subjective word, yet you want to us it in terms of absolutes. It kind of suggest that it is your linguistic bubble to be burst.

I defiantly feel the profession needs some work, but it gets old when folks such as yourself falsely exclaim builds are not viable, that so many of us thrive using everyday. Its as if the lacking assume they can speak for everyone else. That mentality misrepresents and misinforms folks like the op.

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

That may be the case, I think though that overall the engineers provide more utility because they do have several very effective damaging builds as well as great support potential. The point I was mainly trying to get across was that grenades are definitely not they only build engineers have to do damage – and if someone isn’t very good at ground targeting, grenades may not even be the best option for them for dps.

With no traits and with standard gear, grenade damage is almost double that of the next best ranged “kit” (rifle). And unless I’m very much mistaken, explosives actually improve better with traits than the non-explosive kits do (partially because of the raw Power bonus, partially because the extra grenade, extra range, extra radius and extra status effects make a huge difference) .

You’d have to be really, really bad at lobbing grenades not to see at least a 50% damage increase compared to your normal weapons.
My problem with the kit is that I feel absolutely compelled to use it as much as possible because it kills things so much faster, even though I hate mashing the “1” button twice a second. If I use another kit, I feel like I’m heavily crippling myself.

Ploppy.2917:

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

That may be the case, I think though that overall the engineers provide more utility because they do have several very effective damaging builds as well as great support potential. The point I was mainly trying to get across was that grenades are definitely not they only build engineers have to do damage – and if someone isn’t very good at ground targeting, grenades may not even be the best option for them for dps.

With no traits and with standard gear, grenade damage is almost double that of the next best ranged “kit” (rifle). And unless I’m very much mistaken, explosives actually improve better with traits than the non-explosive kits do (partially because of the raw Power bonus, partially because the extra grenade, extra range, extra radius and extra status effects make a huge difference) .

You’d have to be really, really bad at lobbing grenades not to see at least a 50% damage increase compared to your normal weapons.
My problem with the kit is that I feel absolutely compelled to use it as much as possible because it kills things so much faster, even though I hate mashing the “1” button twice a second. If I use another kit, I feel like I’m heavily crippling myself.

I don’t know how bad you’d have to be to not see the damage boost, but there are definitely people out there who cannot aim (tho if the OP is one of these people, not sure I would recommend an ele either ).

Again, I am not only looking at it from a pure damage standpoint. I typically don’t use grenades unless I’m in WvW. Grenades are good, don’t get me wrong there, but I personally don’t use them all of the time and I don’t notice the huge damage drop. You have to remember though, damage is only part of this game, I really do believe control is equally or more-so important than shear damage output. Grenades have 0 control (if you don’t count the small chill) while the flamethrower, tool-kit, elixir gun, and bombs have some sort of movement/control aspect to them. This is why I don’t feel compelled to use grenades.

edit: make my thoughts a tad more fluid

Acension.9270:

I am stuck between the two, please give me pros and cons for both

Until they fix the gaping holes in our class I would suggest going ele…they seem to love that class. They buff it and buff it constantly. It’s my last mmo all over again where mages were given everything and no one else would play any other class because they were all nerfed to death.

Expect everyone to be eles and warriors in the future Anet if you continue this trend.

tigirius.9014:

Acension.9270:

I am stuck between the two, please give me pros and cons for both

Until they fix the gaping holes in our class I would suggest going ele…they seem to love that class. They buff it and buff it constantly. It’s my last mmo all over again where mages were given everything and no one else would play any other class because they were all nerfed to death.

Expect everyone to be eles and warriors in the future Anet if you continue this trend.

It’s strange how everyone who chose engineer keeps telling you to choose elementalist. By the way, elementalists got a pretty large nerf last patch.

I, for one, choose to not do things that I don’t like. I’m playing an engineer and I like it. They have a certain depth—eles are probably a bit more complicated, but engineer has never felt like memorizing arbitrary skill sequences to me, because everything on our kits has a low cooldown. So, whereas elementalists rely on chaining similar complicated rotations of skills each fight on long cooldowns, engineers can use a small number of skills effectively or use massive, flexible skill rotations.

Put this same tread on the elementalist boards, they reply similarly but talk about how they have so many issues that you should play the engineer.

ele every time bro, better heals, less bugs, good damage, awesome CC, condition removal like you wouldn’t believe, they have an invul stomp (mist) they can get outta battle so fast with rtl. def ele man.

however, compared to engi ele is easy as hell to play and therefore so so so boring.

I’ve never met an Elementalist who thinks Engineer is a better class. Elementalists, Warriors, Mesmers, and Thieves are very common in WvW and sPvP because they’re so well-off right now. Fewer bugs, fewer orphaned or neglected skills and traits, more viable builds (with Mesmer maybe being one of the less well-endowed in the general scheme of things).

For PvE, you just have to accept you kill world monsters more slowly than burst-optimized professions. This will become incredibly apparent if you ever PvE with Elementalists who even in relatively defensive specs will just decimate opponents while your conditions are just really getting started. But if you stack condition damage the situation is not so bad for dungeons and their bosses. Most condition classes can shine here, although there can be significant competition for DPS contribution if parties are made up exclusively of condition builds.

Both are technically challenging classes to play and that can be rewarding. It’s unfortunate that it’s so hard to measure DPS that it’s difficult to demonstrate your contribution. If you love combat support (healing) and assisting with crowd control, Engineer does a better job.

KirinDave.6451:

I’ve never met an Elementalist who thinks Engineer is a better class.

How many folks do you know with both at 80?

I bet several of the posters here telling them to pick elementalist have not leveled both to max. Just a hunch.

coglin.1496:

KirinDave.6451:

I’ve never met an Elementalist who thinks Engineer is a better class.

How many folks do you know with both at 80?

I bet several of the posters here telling them to pick elementalist have not leveled both to max. Just a hunch.

I know plenty of people with 80 engineers and 80 elementalists; a by-product of being in a WvW guild. Most say Engineer is a healing class right now and its damage potential has been on the decline. It’s also far from the best tanky class.

Honestly? I’m contemplating what to play right now. I’m about to set aside my engineer until they’ve worked out the kinks. Is there really a point mashing my face into the limitations of the class over and over?

I wish more people would do this rather than double-down on their commitment to a class that has always been problematic. Player-hours/month is a valuable metric for Anet to see exactly how desirable and fun classes are to play.

I should probably just leave threads like this..I guess it just bothers me that my favorite profession is getting misrepresented:

—statements like “other professions use power/crit builds and kill mobs before my damage-over-time skills have even hardly done anything…” (Well…yes, you get the point.)

—statements like “eles are better at absolutely everything, including crowd control.”

Is everyone using pistol/elixir builds or something? Engineers have great power options and way better cc than eles.

i use bomb kit, flame throw and pistol shield, and my CC is nice, but it’s over quick, and im not as useful after. try to 1v1 an ele lol

Eddie.9143:

i use bomb kit, flame throw and pistol shield, and my CC is nice, but it’s over quick, and im not as useful after. try to 1v1 an ele lol

Yeah, I should have left…please don’t feel like I’m trying to be argumentative or mean or getting this thread get off topic—I just feel like the engineer has some things that it’s better at than elementalist, and one of them is crowd control.

—bomb kit has aoe blowout on 30 sec cooldown
—flamethrower has aoe knockback on 15 sec cooldown
—shield has aoe knockback on 30/24 second cooldown
—shield has ranged double-daze or melee 2 sec stun on 40/32 sec cooldown
—you still have one utility slot left.
—your elite is probably a 2 sec stun and a net turret (3 sec immobilize every 10 sec)
—you also have 3 aoe blinds: 15, 20, and 25 second cooldowns.

I suppose an ele could get this number of cc skills by taking an off-hand dagger, an earth shield, and a lightning hammer, each of which have two cc skills. Most of those are single-target and elemental weapons have 60 sec cooldowns, though.

I love dueling eles—always fun, interesting fights, not just the same 3-4 skills like all the other professions. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.

Ele here. that was looking for infofor a friend building an eng…
I just want to say that most ele information stated here are wrong…

Ele had 2 builds, forced by huge bugs on our skills and traits….(i.e. we cannot go glass cannon also 100+ major skill/traits bugs).
Anet nerfed one into oblivion, in a simplicistic way nerfing strongly even the other (DD stuck in melee range).
That because along with patch notes we also get lot of ninja nerfs >.> while many new bugged skills.

Being forced in traiting with 30 water and 30 arcana (minimum 25-20 but 30-30 is better) leaves really few room to versatility…and to dish out damage we are forced to perform combos :| while dancing with attunements.

conjured weapons doesn t work with ele passive skills so nobody uses them <.< and we basically don t have an usable elite.

Said that DD ele is still quite entertaining, but atm there is just 1 tanky melee build for eles.

I m not saing ele is worse than eng because i don t know eng enough infact i was here to gather infos….
But i can clearly see most eng here are on the same boat for ele

P.S: only real op thing is mist stomp >.< but most classes have similartools like stealth stomps or fast stomps…etc

P.P.S: tldr summing UP ele DD is quite fun but not versatile….expecially in wvwvw.
staff ele is boring and completely bad atm….but somehow decent in wvwvw (because of the 1200 range and being able to attack from walls).

Rifle Engineers can drop any one pretty fast, you just need to enjoy the play style which I don’t.

tigirius.9014:

Acension.9270:

I am stuck between the two, please give me pros and cons for both

Until they fix the gaping holes in our class I would suggest going ele…they seem to love that class. They buff it and buff it constantly. It’s my last mmo all over again where mages were given everything and no one else would play any other class because they were all nerfed to death.

Expect everyone to be eles and warriors in the future Anet if you continue this trend.

How is it possible that people don’t even know what they’re talking about before they come to the forum and post…

Eddie.9143:

ele every time bro, better heals, less bugs, good damage, awesome CC, condition removal like you wouldn’t believe, they have an invul stomp (mist) they can get outta battle so fast with rtl. def ele man.

however, compared to engi ele is easy as hell to play and therefore so so so boring.

Ele is on par with engi as far as skill requirement goes.

Pyrial.2917:

tigirius.9014:

Acension.9270:

I am stuck between the two, please give me pros and cons for both

Until they fix the gaping holes in our class I would suggest going ele…they seem to love that class. They buff it and buff it constantly. It’s my last mmo all over again where mages were given everything and no one else would play any other class because they were all nerfed to death.

Expect everyone to be eles and warriors in the future Anet if you continue this trend.

How is it possible that people don’t even know what they’re talking about before they come to the forum and post…

Exactly how is it that people don’t recognize that there are gaping holes in classes before they comment on other people’s posts?

Have you played an engineer?!? cmon! pay attention. There are bugs in this class from BWE that have NEVER been addressed or do you like having someone in charge tell you that your targeting is fixed when it’s not?

for example: FT/EG STILL miss miss miss miss miss miss miss miss miss miss when attacking objects and that’s just one of the things they told us in the last patch they would be addressing. still waiting.

tigirius.9014:

Pyrial.2917:

tigirius.9014:

Acension.9270:

I am stuck between the two, please give me pros and cons for both

Until they fix the gaping holes in our class I would suggest going ele…they seem to love that class. They buff it and buff it constantly. It’s my last mmo all over again where mages were given everything and no one else would play any other class because they were all nerfed to death.

Expect everyone to be eles and warriors in the future Anet if you continue this trend.

How is it possible that people don’t even know what they’re talking about before they come to the forum and post…

Exactly how is it that people don’t recognize that there are gaping holes in classes before they comment on other people’s posts?

Have you played an engineer?!? cmon! pay attention. There are bugs in this class from BWE that have NEVER been addressed or do you like having someone in charge tell you that your targeting is fixed when it’s not?

for example: FT/EG STILL miss miss miss miss miss miss miss miss miss miss when attacking objects and that’s just one of the things they told us in the last patch they would be addressing. still waiting.

Who is disputing whether or not bugs exist? Your statement about elementalists however, is quite laughable. Especially on the heels of a major nerf.

And yes, I do in fact play engineer. I’ve played every profession, in pvp, on a pretty equal basis through rank 34.

I cant believe some of the posts im reading. The elementalist since launch (not beta) has been considered the weakest/ most broken class until recently. Once people figured the elementalist out, it became this great class though the main reason behind that was one ability that just got nerfed. Ele is my original 80 and engi is my most recent, and I will say this…

You will see a lot more Eles than Engis, but most people that play Ele arent that good. Its a class everyone sees as “the mage” when it really doesnt work that way. Theyre either mid ranged warrior/fighters or long distance AOE machines, pick your poison. Ele also requires a lot of micro management to do great. You dont need to be a beast to pve normally, but in dungeons/pvp/wvw it takes skill and practice to use him to his potential.

Engi is different. While the classes are similar on paper, theyre completely different when you play them. Engi suffers from what I call “early ele syndrome” where people are pointing at all these weaknesses and not enough strengths. Ele is a powerful class that doesnt need to go glass cannon to do damage. Youre never going to be a BS thief or knockdown/100B warrior, but instant burst damage isnt everything. What makes the Engi so powerful is how he can survive and his damage per action, especially with the chain lightning build ive fallin in love with. With that said, Chain lightning build (which just popped up recently) has SERIOUS burst damage even without a glass cannon build, and I am intrigued to see what people do with it with revamping.

im typing too much and texting on my phone sorry for my bad grammar, but to sum this up id choose Engi. Ele is my fav class (tied with thief, cant decide) but Engi is right up there with them, and I havent put anywhere near as much time in with it. The potential for the Engi is ridiculous, I truly doubt there will be more nerfs, just buffs.

The Toolbelt Static discharge build has been there since release. People posted it plenty of them, that’s where I got it, from a video of a guys, 1 week after release, burtins people down in 3 seconde.

It’s nothing new

Don’t think it will change anything in the future.

its not about being new, its about how long it takes people to catch on. People didnt abuse Evasive Arcana until 3 or 4 weeks ago, but the trait was there since Beta. Things change based on how many people use it well it does from there on. Except for warriors, they just keep getting buffed and everyone uses them

Yeah, but I would be surprised if people didn’t catch it yet.

It’s not like Evasive Arcana that nobody documented it.

I mean static discharge was a pretty regular build for dps.

The reason I don’t think Engi will become FotM : While static discharge is really bursty and strong, If you miss you have a lot of chance of dying. I know you said we didn’t have to be glassy to use this build, but we still don’t have Elementalist mobility.

We don’t have crazy defensize utilies like Ele. I know if I miss my combo, I’m in trouble. The combo usually only half work vs good player.

Well that’s only my opinion, but I think Engi static discharge has been known and used by quit a lot people, but it’s just not as good as Ele. Elemental is unkillable if they know how to move.

P.S : This build is still Engi best build in my eyes, at least for WvW because that’s what I do. I also use kit raffinement, don’t know if you ever used it. It can add some nice number in your combo.

ill be sure to try that! I half agree that ele can be unkillable. My main preference in Ele over Engi is that Ele seems to not have as many problems vs mesmers in WvW as other classes do. I cant tolerate Mes when im thief, but with my Ele they arent a problem. I actually have more problems with guardiansm yet my engi can steamroll most guards (thank you ram head knockdown!)

Yeah kitting guardian with Engi is a lot of fun

NevirSayDie.6235:

I should probably just leave threads like this..I guess it just bothers me that my favorite profession is getting misrepresented:

—statements like “other professions use power/crit builds and kill mobs before my damage-over-time skills have even hardly done anything…” (Well…yes, you get the point.)

A lot of people like the pistol because the shield is very very good, and the pistol is much better against crowds. The Rifle has fairly good burst, but requires you to close distance with the target. Often we’d prefer to dps without being in the middle of an enemy group.

But it’s true that in PvE or some types of sPvP engagements the rifle can have some reasonable burst. It’s too bad it’s so limited and slow. Even if you hit your 5 right after 4, sometimes due to lag or the cosmos failing to align you still miss.

Is everyone using pistol/elixir builds or something? Engineers have great power options and way better cc than eles.

Engineer has better knockbacks and downs. Not all CC.

I have an 80 ele and I am leveling an eng. I’d go with eng. They are both is the same sort of boat mechanics wise, but the elementalist has a lot of extremely frustrating bugs and basically only has 1 (maybe two if you stretch it) viable builds. After so much QQing elemental bunker builds got a nerf last patch but the thing is people only specced bunker because you cant spec anything else and actually be useful.

Elementalists’ damage traits are pretty bad so basically the class doesnt have a dps spec. Conjured weapons are designed horribly and a bunch of the traits in all of the trees deal with conjured weapons. (The problems with conjured weapons is they lock you out of your other skills which u need to live and replace them with the weapons skills. The fix for this would be to only have the conjured skills replace the elemental they are attuned to i.e. fiery sword should only replace fire skills and still let you swap to other attunes then they would be useful. They also can be picked up by other players which kinda screws you when they do this)

The way attunement swapping works you are pretty much forced to spec heavy into Arcane for attunement reduction time and then heavy into water for healing and survival since elementalists have the lowest HP in the game. On top of that 80-percent of elementalist abilities have long cast times, direction facing requirements AND aiming. Its fun but a ton of work to get the same results other classes can do pressing 2 buttons. As an elementalists you might have to dodge twice, swap attunements 3 times and cast 3 directional/aimed spells to get the same result a warrior does charging and hitting the mob three times.

The one good trick that we had was might stacking but that was nerfed in the last patch when they fixed the evasive arcana bug along with a bunch of other stuff that wasnt working as intended. Basically ele got nerfed last patch and the two major fixes implemented are still bugged.

From what I’ve heard people say, Eng actually brings a lot more utility than elementalist. I know eng has better burst than ele so if you like doing damage I’d go eng.

For me ele is like playing a WoW disc priest but not really as fun. Specced heavy arcane/water you basically have low damage, so sure its hard to kill you but you cant kill anyone either, which means you are left with support and like I said from what I’ve heard eng has better support abilities than ele.

for dungeons, tanks DD ele can still stack easily 10 stacks of might for the party…..also get +10-20% dmg for himself

After that you used most of your skills unfortunately….evasive arcana helped keeping few (3-4 ) might stacks up.

The same cannot be done in PvP requiring you sto stand still for some seconds (with damage reduction, cripple and stability yet real players can just walk out AoE dmg leaving you without skills to counterattack).

the real issue is you are stuck in melee….no weapon change, no mid range spells….all short range….

P.S. DD has more issue than eng

Even for inanimate objects DD has MOST of his attacks missing with the same issue….the problem is that this applies to almost hisprimary skills and the long cooldowns makes it a HUGE issue….worse than eng.

I have both a level 80 Elementalist and a level 80 Engineer. Both have a full set of exotics. I have logged enough hours on both of them that I feel more than a little ashamed when I type /age. I do not prefer one over the other, I’m constantly switching back and forth.

With that in mind…
At least half of the stuff in this thread (and the associated thread in the ele forum) is simply not true. I’m not sure how the OP could possibly sort this all out. This thread is a classic example of “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”

My opinion:
1) Elementalist has more versatility within a spec. By this, I mean that a staff Elementalist has a lot of options at its disposal at any given moment, like-wise a D/D or S/D or whatever.

For example, when I’m playing staff, I can:
- Rain fire from heaven
- fire field
- burn
- retreat, leaving fire behind
- heal the group
- aoe bleed
- immobilize
- cripple field
- reflect shield
- trap someone in a stun field
- knockback
- aoe swiftness + cc removal
- aoe chill
and I got tired writing out the rest, look here http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_skills

The point is that all of those skill are available at once: Lots of options at the same time. One build, One spec, dozens of tactics ready for the using at any time.

2) Engineer has more build versatility. Elementalist is pretty much locked into the weapon you use. Engineer can mix and match like crazy. Engineer might not have as many powerful options at all times, but you can pick which options you want.

Optional builds for Engineer.
- crazy kit switcher
- chain lightning burster
- rifle + alchemy
- pistol + alchemy
- gadget build
- grenade glass cannon
- max healer build
- flamethrower
So many more, just look around this forum

The best part of an engineer build is that you DON’T have to go all in. I run a hybrid with grenades, elixir gun, and toolkit. My stats are mostly for healing, but I can also tank and do half the damage of a glass cannon. You can build it anyway you want to.

CONCLUSION
If you want to have lots of options at your fingertips at all times, the Elementalist is for you. Just be warned that you will get locked into a role (single target burst, aoe, or melee) by the weapon you choose. Elementalists hate this, just look at all the people asking for weapon swaps.

If your passion is for interesting builds, go for Engineer. Pretty much everything is open to you. Learn from the cookie cutter builds, but don’t stop there. Keep tweaking it until if works best for you. Keep in mind that the more specialized your build is, the less play options you are likely to have. This is why so many engineers complain about being “forced” into certain skills, they regret not having certain skills when they choose other ones.

Or, if you are like me, do both.

First remember ele has very long cooldowns expecially skills but also on attunements…
But staff skills are hoorible

For example, when I’m playing staff, I can:
- Rain fire from heaven

SLOW cast, and random area….just good for dynaic events…but even random mobs evade that…

- fire field
decent but dps is not there

- burn

low dps

- retreat, leaving fire behind
just an additional retreat, no damage and not viable for combo forcing a long range class into melee is bad…

- heal the group
Eng heals more this is known since a lot

- aoe bleed
Possible the slowest spell in the game and low dmg too

- immobilize
For 2-3 seconds, slow to connect

- cripple field
worst cripple in the game maybe

- reflect shield
3 seconds

- trap someone in a stun field
exiting gives 1 second stun….don t worry…

- knockback
push back not knockback the difference is huge…

- aoe swiftness + cc removal
this is true

- aoe chill
In an a attunement without dmg output….

trust me staff is good only to be a WALL in a circle….
Its also teh most boring build in the game….

Eng is better at support
guardian is better at tanking

DD is possibly the only decent build….and despite not being so strong is possibly the most fun in the game according to many players…

I cant agree YET that DD is the only viable build, only because I think someone will come up with a great Conjure Weapon build soon. I got to level 80 using Thor hammer build before the conjure weapon buff so im not sure. But yea, DD and maybe S/D are it.

Elementalists dont get to sling around pistols while wearing a duster and epic hats.